By the way, what a good forum.

I guess he feels the government is too slow…

When has that ever happened? There are light-years of yawning chasm between the two.

“A recent PBS special on Silicon Valley noted that 60% of all the integrated circuits created were bought by NASA in the 1960s.”

That is a meaningless statistic, and likely one that you interpreted or remembered incorrectly. 60% of all integrated circuits made in the 10 years of the 60’s? And I suppose they all were installed in the Apollo command module?

“ That coupled w/DoD purchases essentially created what we call Silicon Valley today and layed the foundation for the commercial computer fevolution we enjoy today.”

Notice there are no computer chips made in Silicon Valley anymore? Yet it’s still the hotbed of innovation today, but today it’s software that gets the VC attention, not chip manufacturers (they are now thought of as a commodity, regardless how innovative and hard they may be). Things change.

I’m not sure what your point was (you never made a good case for it), but since the Moon is not anybody’s to own or give away, land grabs are not a possibility at this point. And unlike the worst conditions one would find in Alaska, humans can still live off the land there without any technology or outside help. You can’t do that on the Moon, which is why someone needs to figure out what the “value” is on the Moon before they spend tens or hundreds of $Billions to test out their exploitation “theories” – political or otherwise.

And so far the only value that has been found in going to the Moon is in settling arguments made here on Earth – when is there going to be another one of those? Who knows, but it hasn’t happened in 40 years, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Seward was told Alaska wasn’t worth it, either in his day– ‘Seward’s Folly.’ Value is a transient term. The value isn’t w/t the lunar excuersion itself but the value to geo-political strategies– and domestic economics. A recent PBS special on Silicon Valley noted that 60% of all the integrated circuits created were bought by NASA in the 1960s. That coupled w/DoD purchases essentially created what we call Silicon Valley today and layed the foundation for the commercial computer fevolution we enjoy today.

Well said RGO. Essentially correct, although ther was some deficit spending and Nam was more LBJ’s problem than JFK’s- Still, as Dave Scott put it, they’d ‘pretty much stretched the rubber band as far as it would go’ w/modifying Apollo hardware given the budgets on hand. And that program was paid for in its time. Smart people don’t pay much attention to Garver’s musing on future space ops- she’s essentiall a Washington lobbyist who never met a government contract she didn’t embrace and operating outside the area of her competence when it comes to reasoned space policy planning. Championing the ISS is a classic example. Always the contracts w/her. The quicker she is jettisoned from NASA, the better.

This is simply inaccurate. Examplt- in early 2004, as Dubya was announcing his VSE initiative, a CNN/USA Today Gallup poll showed Americans supported the space program 53% w/47% opposing. 53% is a majority- hardly ‘tepid’ =eyeroll= And those in support were chiefly the young and men. Women were more opposed. On the other hand, 67% opposed paying for it- which is classically American.